Tag: Alberto Gonzales (page 3)

(Update: Firedoglake is live-blogging the hearing -- Part 1 and 2 so far.)

Attorney General Gonzales, scheduled to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee today, says in his prepared testimony that he has no intention of resigning.

"I could walk away, or I could devote my time, effort and energy to fix the problems," Gonzales said.

"Since I have never been one to quit, I decided that the best course of action was to remain here and fix the problems. That is exactly what I am doing."

More quotes from his statement are here. Why should he get the opportunity to fix problems he either created or negligently allowed to occur on his watch?

As to the topics he'll be quizzed about, TPMuckraker lists these:

The Senate Judiciary Committee hearing has begun on the U.S. Attorney Firings.

TPM has Sara Taylor's written statement.

She's going to walk the line of deciding which questions she can answer as a private citizen and which she won't answer because Fred Fielding says they would impact privileged staff communications.

"While I may be unable to answer certain questions today, I will answer those questions if the courts rule that this committee's need for the information outweighs the president's assertion of executive privilege...

I look forward to answering those questions not covered by the President's assertion of executive privilege."

Firedoglake is live-blogging the hearing. (Part One and Two, so far.) TPMuckraker also is following the hearings.

The hearing is steaming live here.

Paul Charleton, the former U.S. Attorney for Arizona who was fired by Attorney General Gonzales, testified before Congress yesterday and said Gonzales was "overzealous" in his determination to seek the death penalty, often against the advice of prosecutors in charge of the case.

The Bush administration has so far overruled prosecutors' recommendations against its use more frequently than the Clinton administration did.

The pace of overrulings picked up under Gonzales's predecessor, Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, and spiked in 2005 and 2006, when the number of times Gonzales ordered prosecutors to seek the death penalty against their advice jumped from three to 21.

One example is the case of meth dealer Jose Rios Rico. Charleton describes Gonzales' unwillingness to listen to his arguments against seeking the death penalty based on the lack of forensic evidence showing Rico was the murderer:

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When Alberto Gonzales was nominated for Attorney General, some hispanic groups swallowed their doubts about his political history and supported him because he was a Latino.

Some of those groups are now expressing buyer's remorse.

"I have to say we were in error when we supported him to begin with," said Brent Wilkes, executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens. Gonzales, Wilkes said, has not aggressively pursued hate crimes and cases of police profiling of Hispanics. "We hoped for better. Instead it looks like he's done the bidding of the White House."

Janet Murguia, president and chief executive of the National Council of La Raza, the nation's largest Hispanic rights group, called Gonzales "a follower, not a leader."

Count me among those who never understood their support for Gonzales in the first place.

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Here is Monica Goodling's opening statement, via Think Progress, which has both the video and transcript.

Christy at Firedoglake is live-blogging. You can watch the live webcast here.

Today is the day Monica Goodling testifies with immunity before the House Judiciary Committee on the U.S. Attorney firings.

Will she provide further ammunition for those hoping for an Alberto Gonzales' resignation? Or will she plead love of country?

I think it's the latter and she'll be defensive about the firing plan, trying to cast it in the best possible light.

The problem is, there may be no more light at the end of this tunnel.

Senator Arlen Specter predicts Alberto Gonzales will resign as Attorney General before the "no confidence" vote.

The New York Times in an editorial today explains why the scandal matters.

One question, though. I reported here in February, via the Washington Post, that Tim Griffin, the acting U.S. Attorney for Arkansas, named to replace Bud Griffin, said he would decline the permanent appointment. So why does the Times say:

As a result of the purge, Tim Griffin, a Republican operative and Karl Rove protégé, was installed as the top federal prosecutor in eastern Arkansas. Rachel Paulose, a 33-year-old Republican activist with thin prosecutorial experience, was assigned to Minnesota. If either indicted a prominent Democrat tomorrow, everyone would believe it was a political hit.

Griffin appears to be a lame duck.

As for Paulose, the stated problems with her are her management style, probably caused by her relative youth as opposed to inexperience. To be fair, many U.S. Attorneys don't have prosecutorial experience as the job is a political plum. They aren't appointed because they have crackerjack conviction rates. They are appointed because they've been recommended to their state's senators, usually as a result of political clout or efforts.

The issue is that once installed in the job, they are supposed to be apolitical in the way they mete out justice. So I think the Times' analogy is off in that respect.

The Washington Post re-invents former Attorney General John Ashcroft, casting him as a protector of civil liberties in comparison to Alberto Gonzales.

Who are they kidding? John Ashcroft may have had a moment on his hospital sick bed in which he balked at re-authorizing the warrantless NSA surveillance program, and he may have expressed reservations about indefinite detentions at Guantanamo, but he was just as abominable as an Attorney General, and in my opinion, more so than Alberto Gonzales.

From his push on the Patriot Act, to his initiating warrantless monitoring of attorney-client conversations, to his many failed terrorism cases, his connection to Abu Ghraib, his insistence on prosecuting medical marijuana cases even in states that had legalized it, his attempt to keep tabs on federal judges, his belief that the undocumented could be held indefinitely and most spectacularly, his crusade to increase the use of the death penalty in federal cases, over the objections of his own prosectors and a federal judge, he should not be re-evaluated for his one moment of lucidity.

He was the worst Attorney General ever.

A blast from the past: The criticisms of Senators at his confirmation hearings.

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Colorado Senator Ken Salazar has joined the roster of Senators urging Alberto Gonzales to resign.

Salazar, D-Denver, has long been considered one of Gonzales' few Democratic allies in Congress, and until today he had declined to join many fellow Democrats and handful of Republicans who have been calling for Gonzales to step down in the wake of a controversy over the firing of federal prosecutors last year.

In a press conference in Denver, Salazar said he has become concerned about a "politicization" of the Department of Justice. He said he spoke to Gonzales and urged him to resign, saying it was "time for the Department of Justice to get a fresh start."

Salazar is hardly a liberal Democrat. He's not only centrist, but a well known compromiser who values bi-partisanship.

I'm beginning to think Gonzales may actually resign. If it wasn't likely, I don't think Salazar would have taken a lead role in this.

Then again, perhaps Salazar, formerly the Attorney General of Colorado, just feels particularly strongly about the job.

Yesterday, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was asked by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee about his sworn testimony that "the Terrorist Surveillance Program had aroused no controversy inside the Bush administration, despite congressional testimony Tuesday [by James Comey]that senior departmental officials nearly resigned in 2004 to protest such a program."

Gonzo's response? "The Justice Department said yesterday that it will not retract . . ." Must have been talking about some different illegal surveillance program. But these questions still stand; does Gonzales still stand by these statements?

I take my responsibilities very seriously in respecting the role of the Department of Justice, given to the department by Congress, to decide for the executive branch what the law requires . . .

I understand and it's my judgment that I don't get to decide for the executive branch what the law is. Ultimately, that is the president, of course. But by statute, the Department of Justice is given the authority to provide advice to the executive branch.

And so, while I certainly participate in discussions about these matters, at the end of the day, that opinion represents the position of the department and therefore the position of the executive branch.

James Comey testified that Gonzales did not accept the Justice Department as the "decide[er] for the executive branch what the law requires." Surely then either Gonzales' above testimony requires clarification at the least or Gonzales needs to refute Comey's testimony.

Via mcjoan, Sens. Schumer, Feingold, Kennedy and Durbin are concerned about discrepancies in Gonzales' Congressional testimony concerning the objection of then Deputy Attorney General James Comey to the BushCo warrantless surveillance program:

In very dramatic testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, former Deputy Attorney General James Comey testified . . . that you and former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card went to Mr. Ashcroft's bedside at George Washington Hospital, where he was in intensive care, in an effort to get him to agree to certify the legality of a classified program that he and Mr. Comey, who was serving as acting Attorney General at the time, had concluded should not be so certified. . . .

. . . You testified last year before both the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House Judiciary Committee about this incident. On February 6, 2006, at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, you were asked whether Mr. Comey and others at the Justice Department had raised concerns about the NSA wiretapping program. You stated in response that the disagreement that occurred was not related to the wiretapping program confirmed by the President in December 2005, which was the topic of the hearing.

. . . We ask for your prompt response to the following question: In light of Mr. Comey's testimony yesterday, do you stand by your 2006 Senate and House testimony, or do you wish to revise it?

I have one more for the Senators. During his confirmation hearings in January 2005, Gonzales testified that:

Politics TV has the video of James Comey's testimony yesterday about his rush to the hospital to pre-empt Alberto Gonzales and Andy Card's attempt to get former Attorney General John Ashcroft to sign off on the extension of the warrantless NSA wiretap program.

Update: Don't miss Marcy Wheeler on Comey in The Guardian today, The Constitution is in Intensive Care.

Via Jane at Firedoglake, Glenn Greenwald provides context and the Washington Post editorial calls the White House actions alarming.

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